This invention relates to a transmission and drive arrangement for vehicles and more particularly to an improved transmission arrangement for off the road vehicles embodying a reverse gear.
Off the road vehicles embodying ballon tires and designed primarily for a single rider are enjoying great popularity. Because of the off the road application, it has been the practice to employ three or four wheeled vehicles of this type to obtain improved stability. However, because of the compact nature of such vehicles, it has been the practice to use an engine and driving arrangement similar to that from a motorcycle wherein the transmission assembly of the vehicle is incorporated in the engine crankcase and the transmission shafts extend parallel to the rotational axis of the output shaft of the engine and transversely to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. However, with off the road vehicles as with motorcycles, it is desirable to employ shaft drives in some situations. Therefore, it is necessary for the transmission and driving arrangement to provide a mechanism for transferring the drive from a transversely extending transmission output shaft to a longitudinally extending drive shaft. Furthermore, when the vehicle is provided with three or four wheels, it is also desirable to incorporate a reverse gear mechanism for driving the vehicle rearwardly. However, it is very difficult to provide such a reverse arrangement in a transmission that is contained with the crankcase without the engine transmission assembly becoming unduly bulky. An improved transmission and drive assembly embodying a reverse gear mechanism is dislosed in the copending patent application entitled "Transmission For Motor Three-Wheelers", Ser. No. 575,050, filed Jan. 30, 1984 in the name of Shinji Terashita and assigned to the assignee of this application. It is an object of this invention to provide a further improved transmission of this general type.
It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide an improved transmission and drive arrangement for off the road vehicles that incorporates a simplified and compact reverse drive arrangement.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved and simplified compact reverse transmission assembly for off the road vehicles.